


Sick Day

by Ariadni



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariadni/pseuds/Ariadni
Summary: After the events of "A Better World". Superman worries that he's going to eventually make the same choice as Lord Superman.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Clark Kent
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is a contemplative piece. I'm mostly just trying to exercise my writing muscles and I thought writing Clark and his views on humans as a little bit more alien than he's usually written would be good practice.

The steady sound of approaching footsteps pulled Clark from his empty reverie.  
A nanosecond more and his mind had resolved the clack-clacking of leather soles to the  
double thump-thumping of a four-chambered heart. Its steady rhythm a familiar and beloved drum beat.

He leaned back against the cold steel wall of the fortress observatory. Blue eyes drawn to the splendid view of the arctic nightscape.

Glittering ice and snow under a sea of stars lay just beyond the towering silver-blue panes of the empty hall.

His keen eyes traced the swirling wind, absently following gleaming micro crystals as they danced through the air.

The enchanting sight did- had done little to elevate his dark mood.

Clark's gaze remained resolutely focused out across the snow. While the last dying echo of booted feet faded against icy walls. A pair of black fur boots coming to a halt to his left.

Steel hands clenched tight around a ragged scrap of black nanite-fiber. A bone-white 'S' superimposed over a sickly red shield; lay hidden under the vice grip of his fingers.

"Kal-el" 

Clark turned his head upward; the fullness of his regard focused upon the source of his gently spoken name.

Clark could hear the song of his guest’s presence, the rushing flow through his veins, the hypnotizing push and pull of muscle and sinew, and the unconscious pendulum-sway of constantly adjusting balance. 

Humans were always in motion.

And when they were together, friends and enemies alike. They danced. Acting and reacting to some soundless music's rhythm- to a silent song, not even his nearly omniscient alien ears could hear.

It was exhausting to pretend not to be deaf. Deaf to the mysterious melodies of the human experience that Clark so desperately longed to hear.

He could feel the symphony calling to him and passing him by when he could not answer.  
He'd learned, though.  
Observed the steps and perfected the dance as near as he could.

"Have you seen Kent?"  
"Ah! There you are!”  
"Have you been there this whole time?"  
"Where did you go?"

Socially aggressive, primates, and predators. 

Human eyes are made for movement.

They were always gliding past his unnaturally motionless frame, sliding past the absence of flickering movement across his face. 

Their lovely faces conveying an endless procession of feeling and sensation, singing back in answer to the ever-moving world around them. 

Clark Kent wore glasses.

It was simpler to hide the motionlessness of his pupils behind glass lenses. And much easier to fake the microexpressions the human mind demanded if one wanted to be seen. 

"There's something off about that guy...."  
"He just seems so...I don't know... creepy..."

He didn't smell human either, Clark had realized.

His scent's unusualness is easily detectable to the unconscious human mind but not so strong or threatening to register as anything other than vague strangeness to anyone's conscious awareness.

Clark Kent wore cologne.

The rustle of wool and synthetic fiber as his guest deliberately shifted forward brought him back to the present.

He watched a series of cascading movements waltz across his friend's stern countenance culminating into a deeply concerned frown.

He sighed, sun-heated breath misting in the freezing air.

"I thought I'd find you here," Bruce said. He was speaking in lilting Kryptonian. It was a tradition both he and Diana had established when visiting the Fortress of Solitude. 

In honor and memory of the dead, they both claimed.

Clark had shared language, history, literature, and so much more with them. He'd spent countless hours reading aloud poetry, philosophy, and famous classical works of fiction while the three of them quietly stood guard on the Watchtower high above the Earth. 

He needed to share. Needed someone else to share the burden with him,  
someone else to share his sorrow, his joy, and someone to grieve with him.

Though Bruce and Diana spoke with impeccable fluency, the two favored the older form of Krypton's principle language from the pre-telepathic era. They found its modern cousin far too harsh and unwieldy for speaking. 

Not that Clark preferred it any less. Modern Kryptonian was vastly more  
suitable for conveying the nuances of thought thru thought, rather than the harmonies of one's voice.

"I hope you don't mind the uninvited company."  
Bruce stated. His melodious voice broke Clark out of his train of thought once more.  
Clark shook his head no. The hint of a smile creeping past the corners of his lips. 

He was never going to tell either of them that they sounded like they had just stepped out of the equivalent of a Shakespearian play. 

"Diana is on her way too," Bruce continued moving as he spoke. 

Clark admired his grace. Bruce was all liquid-smooth as he flowed into motion, pooling and settling into quiet repose by his side. 

He leaned his head against Clark's shoulder. He felt so light and ephemeral the most tangible thing about him seemed to be the percussion of the never-ending beat of his heart. 

Clark watched as Bruce's nostrils flared ever so slightly as he instinctively took a deeper breath.

A habit every human did, and yet hardly any of them ever seemed to even notice. Clark could hear his blood pressure dip slightly, instincts apparently satisfied deep within that unknowable depth of the unconscious mind. Clark observed the next step of the dance expectantly.

Head tilted down, and mouth angled away from Clark's face politely. So as not to breathe directly into it.

As if there was any potency in the soft fragility of human breath that could ever disturb one as invulnerable as Superman.

Clark relaxed into thought. He was enjoying the soothing balm of Bruce's company.

On the second day of middle school, Clark remembered. He had prayed half the night away, begging God to make him sick. Just a little.  
Clark couldn't stand the idea of going back to school after that miserable first day had had him in tears.

He'd woken up before the sun. So woefully healthy and helplessly distraught. Hopeful inspiration had given wings to one last desperate idea. He'd run out to the farmhouse's new half underground septic tank. He thought that the smell might make him feel that strange nausea giving him a pass out of school that day.

He supposed if bad smells could make humans sick. Why not him? If he could get a bad enough smell, maybe, then maybe he could stay home.

It wasn’t long before Pa had found him clinging to the ladder halfway down the putrid tank. He'd pulled Clark out and hosed him down outside. Clark had only cried even harder. 

Then Pa had washed and dried him up in their little sea-shell bathroom in all it's aquamarine and sea breeze glory.  
Clark hadn't even noticed the soft flannel pajamas his father had tenderly clothed him in.  
He'd kept crying into Pa's shoulder as he wrapped them both up under the warm and thick quilt blankets of their big oak wood bed.

He heard Ma on the phone with the school. She was calling in sick for him.

"I'm not sick, Pa." He sobbed. "I can't get sick." he wept despairingly.

Pa kissed his forehead. "You sure can," he'd said. "You’re sick at heart." 

Pa and Ma had stayed in bed all day with him. They'd watched early morning game shows and ate breakfast, and laughed at silly stories from when he was a baby. They'd told him; you don't need an excuse to deserve to be comforted. Because we love you, that's all the reason you need. 

By the third day of school, he hadn't felt sick at all.

Clark pulled himself out of the memory of his thoughts again. He felt a similar heart sickness as he had that day.  
He fidgeted with the fabric still wrapped between his fingers. The motion of his hands drew Bruce's gaze from the view outside the observatory windows.

Bruce rested his hand atop Clark's. 

"Kal-El, look at me." Bruce requested with a soothing tone.  
"Listen," He insisted.  
"We can only prepare for the present moment." He said, reaching for the worn scrap. He unfolded it to trace a finger along the outline of the bloody shield.

"This means hope remember," Bruce murmured, tapping the bleached crest. 

"This is a nightmare we’ve both dreamed. All we can do now is hope. Hope that when it’s our turn to choose, we choose right." 

Hope. Clark thought. It doesn't feel like enough. And yet, in one small corner of his heart, it had been enough. Year after year, that shrinking ember had burned brightly. It had burned with the hope that one small wish he had made long ago on that first day of middle school, might come true.  
He'd been content with the thought that maybe one day someone would look at all his strangeness unbothered and unmoved. Who could accept it all and still dance with him to a song he could never hear.

He kept alive one little spark of hope for one burning desire.

And here he was. Bruce Wayne. Who delighted in the stillness and the quiet. Who didn't mind his strange ways, whose gaze never wavered from Clark’s alien eyes. 

Clark nodded in agreement. He was feeling a little wave of relief ease its way through his chest.  
"I can do that.” He said. And in the blink of an eye, he was on his feet. He pulled Bruce up with him. Clark laughed at his friend's annoyed expression.

"Let's get something to eat!" 

Clark suggested cheerily, willing away the pressing melancholy weighing on his heart, his mood improving steadily.

"I could eat," Bruce replied in acquiescence. His tone could almost give the impression that indulging in sustenance  
was a mere choice and not a biological necesity.

"Great! Clark exclaimed. The Man of Steel's sunny joy rising from beneath a gray cloud of despair.

“When's Diana stopping by?” He asked. Not pausing to hear a response, he continued. "I've been going through the pop culture dramas section in the archives again," Clark said.

"I've found something that looks really promising."

Bruce wasn't about to turn down an invitation to watch Kryptonian television, no matter how trashy. Clark was fairly certain entertainment wasn't his main objective for indulging, though. 

"It could be an hour or more. Diana's covering for Thomas Penny on the Justice League expense reports; they're due for this quarter," Bruce answered. 

Clark hummed in acknowledgment as Bruce lapsed into silence by his side while they passed into the corridor leading to the main living space of the fortress. 

"What about?" Bruce asked. After almost a minute, realizing the Kryptonian wasn’t going to clarify his choice of entertainment for the night, without prompting. Clark smothered a happy grin. 

"hmm?" he hummed in question.

"The show." Bruce restated with a note of agitation bleeding through his tone. 

"Oh, that! right." Clark said. "Yeah, it's about this fictional alien race called the Eloa. Primitive. Well, by Kryptonian standards anyway." Clark clarified. 

Bruce raised his brow, clear interest written across his handsome features. An alien's alien, he wondered.  
It would be worth watching for that alone, regardless of what criticism he might have for the plot or production value.

Hours later, while Clark was lounging on the couch with Bruce and Diana. The title of the Kryptonian film fading into the opening scene on the giant display; Clark could hear the rustle of fabric as a cleaning bot gathered it off the floor. He willed the image of the white and red crest from his mind. Bruce was right. He'd cross that bridge if he ever came to it. 

He hoped.


End file.
